Inconsistency when placing hairpin dynamic with popover

This is one area of Dorico that, while powerful, still seems like black magic to me and I still cannot fully wrap my head around how to truly use this functionality. I’m talking, of course, about dynamic placement.

What seems to confuse me most is using the dynamic popover when in note input mode with no contents highlighted, therefore using the cursor to select a rhythmic position to insert a dynamic. As an example, see the video clip below which shows attempting to insert a basic hairpin at a position on the grid. Notice how the first attempt at placing it does nothing. I move the cursor one slot to the left and try, and again nothing. Finally, I move it back to the first position which did nothing and now it places a hairpin. Why??? What basic concept am I missing here? How do I make sense of how to use this tool with such an inconsistency?

After you’ve entered the dynamic in the popover and pressed Enter, are you using the space bar to move the caret, or the arrow keys? It should work when using the space bar.

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John, I was pressing no other key, but I see what I have missed here: I need to press the space bar to actually place the hairpin. Thank you for pointing out something so simple.

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and also important to mention the space bar lengthens the hairpin by the presently set note duration value and not the arrow key jump value you have set in the bottom left of your screen.

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